The electrification of energy, transport, and compute depends on a short list of minerals whose extraction and — more critically — processing are geographically concentrated. Lithium and cobalt for batteries, neodymium and dysprosium for permanent magnets, gallium and germanium for semiconductors, and a wider basket of platinum-group metals for catalysis now occupy the strategic position oil held in the twentieth century. Whether this constitutes a new scarcity regime or a transitional one is the central question.
The concentration problem
Roughly two-thirds of cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and a comparable share of rare-earth processing capacity sits in a single country. Lithium extraction is concentrated across a handful of salt flats and hard-rock deposits. Gallium and germanium, byproducts of bauxite and zinc refining, are similarly narrow. Export controls, stockpiling, and "friend-shoring" initiatives in the early 2020s are direct responses to this concentration.
Supply chains as conflict surfaces
In the oil century, pipeline routes, tanker chokepoints, and refinery locations were sites of deterrence, sanction, and occasional war. The analogous surfaces in the mineral century are mines, refineries, magnet factories, and semiconductor fabs. Many of these are located in or depend on politically fragile regions; several are co-located with active Contemporary Conflicts. The strategic calculus is not new, but its geography is.
How atoms abundance could defuse it
Three trajectories matter. First, substitution — iron-air, sodium-ion, and solid-state chemistries reduce cobalt and lithium intensity per unit storage. Second, recycling — urban mining of retired batteries and electronics closes the loop as installed base grows. Third, alternative processing — non-Chinese rare-earth separation capacity is expanding, and direct-reduction routes could cut the chokepoints. If Atoms Abundance delivers, the current minerals regime looks transitional rather than structural.
Or merely displace it
The pessimistic reading is that each generation of abundance technology births a new chokepoint. Copper for grid expansion, helium and neon for lithography, enriched isotopes for advanced reactors, fab equipment whose manufacture is itself concentrated — the list does not empty. Abundance may reduce the aggregate volume of resource conflict without eliminating any individual case. See Resource Scarcity and War for the long view.